Tags: body, death, dying, essence, form, formless, grandmother, life, soul, spirit
Transcending the body
When the vicar, Sarah, arrived yesterday to see my grandmother and to say a prayer for her, she walked into the room and said “Oh, it doesn’t look like Dora.” Far from being an insensitive comment, it was tinged with tenderness and some surprise. Of course, she would have always seen my grandma at church dressed smartly in a skirt and navy blue blazer with court shoes, beautiful white hair perfectly curled–always immaculate. But her observation ran deeper than that, for me. There is something that, when it begins to fade, makes the person look less and less like
Body beautiful
“Keeping your body healthy is an expression of gratitude to the whole cosmos — the trees, the clouds, everything.” I love this quote from Thich Nhat Hanh. It helps me to realise that, whilst the physical form may be superficial and fleeting, it is still precious. A flower dies within days of blooming, but don’t we enjoy it, celebrate it, nurture it and revere it while it is alive? With the discovery of a newfound spiritual practice there can be a tendency, as I suggested earlier, to think that it is futile or even arrogant or shallow to take
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